Increasingly, fuse technology is becoming integral for high performance microprocessor design. Fuses traditionally have been formed using polysilicon material having a relatively high pre-programmed resistance. In single-ended fuse cells using polysilicon, a ratio-based design has been employed whereby a reference branch has an increased number of fuses in order to generate a large voltage difference, which is then converted to a digital signal by a sense amplifier.
However, in processes using fuses having small pre-programmed resistances, sensing margin issues may be encountered. For example, metal fuses, having a much lower resistance than the traditional polysilicon fuses, may be incapable of producing a high enough sensing margin sufficient for a sense amplifier to flip. Although the traditional approach of increasing the number of fuses in the fuse cell may increase the sensing margin, this particular solution may have the drawback of reducing area-efficiency.